Dems Criticize Former CIA Director for Calling Feinstein ‘Emotional’
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MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Senate Democrats criticized former CIA Director Michael Hayden Monday after he suggested Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, may have been motivated to declassify a report on the CIA’s interrogation techniques based on “emotional feeling.”
“In responding to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s attempts to shed light on the CIA’s questionable interrogation methods, General Hayden condescendingly accused Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein of being too emotional,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor Monday. “Does that sound like a man that respects women? Do the Republicans sound like a party that treats women equally?”
“Former CIA Director Hayden’s baseless smear of Chairman Feinstein is beyond the pale. I highly doubt he would call a male chairman too ’emotional’ and to do so with Chairman Feinstein is unacceptable,” Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said in a statement.
In an interview on FOX News Sunday, Hayden referenced a quote made by Feinstein in which she said the declassification of the report would “ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.”
“Now, that sentence, that motivation for the report…may show deep emotional feeling on part of the senator,” Hayden said Sunday. “But I don’t think it leads you to an objective report.”
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